AUSSIE BEAR, BUT NOT RUM & KOALA

Published on November 01, 1999.

An ursine incarnation of "Crocodile" Dundee hits the Big Apple in two 45-second spots running in Australia for Bundaberg rum. Bundaberg used three polar bears in its marketing about a decade ago, then dropped them after a few years. But recent market research showed the bears are still popular, so one of the creatures returns in the new campaign. One spot, backing a Bundaberg rum and cola drink, has the bear bantering with a New York cabbie and giving cans of the beverage to three women who appear to be streetwalkers; the other ad, for the rum itself, takes the bear into an African-American neighborhood and nightclub, where he says, "Don't suppose you get a lot of white bears around here." Leo Burnett Connaghan & May, Sydney, created the campaign for United Distillers.